Individuals and organizations are usually so immersed in day-to-day task completion that it is impossible to step back and scan the environment to determine (a) what work is crucial, (b) quality of current and past work, and (c) how the work contributes to larger organizational priorities. This focus on "just keeping up" with what must get done…

The article analyses the system of institutional quality assessment at universities and lays foundation to its functional, morphological and processual parameters. It also presents the concept of the system and discusses the distribution of systems into groups, defines information, accountability, improvement and benchmarking functions of higher…

This paper briefly reviews the early efforts at forming alumni associations and organizing alumni reunions, describes a number of the more recent alumni surveys used in assessment activities, and concludes with suggestions for conducting such surveys. First, pre-1980 alumni surveys that attempted to measure college outcomes are discussed. Next, a…

The role of the state government in higher education assessment is clearly expanding as both the state's interest and investment in higher education grows. Currently, patterns of state involvement vary widely--from indirect incentive programs to direct legislation or regulatory action. Institutional assessment and the resulting reform must be…

The assessment of student progress ("value added") between entering and leaving a college or university is important in any evaluation of an institution's effectiveness. In assessing progress, five propositions are worth noting. First, the assessment should deal with several dimensions of student growth, not knowledge alone. Second,…

A number of higher order cognitive skills are used in the task of evaluating arguments. Such skills should be assessed because the ability to evaluate arguments is an important one in all subject areas. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that these evaluative skills will be representative of those required by other cognitively demanding…

When gathering and presenting educational statistics, five principles should be considered. (1) The data must be accurate, valid, and complete. Limitations, weaknesses, margins of error, and levels of confidence should be clearly stated. (2) The data must include comparable information, sought in comparable ways, in comparable forms, from…

The construction of cognitive tests is largely based on a Thurstonian model of the structure of the intellect, with test content described in terms of loadings on broad constructs called factors. Knowledge of factorial content of a test does not necessarily correspond to knowledge of mental activities elicited by test performance. Modern cognitive…

The questions of whether a number of equality and wealth neutrality measures agree, within the respective groups, when used to assess one state over time or to compare a number of states at one point in time are addressed. The basic analyses in this study show that for four assessments (equality in a state over time, wealth neutrality in a state…

Examined is the critical issue of the quality of teaching and learning in postsecondary education. Written by nine experts in the evaluation of instruction, the book asks the questions: Should university teachers be evaluated?; If so, with what goals in mind and by what methods should they be judged?; What are the effects of teacher evaluation on…

This paper suggests ways in which manifest, physical attributes of graphic elements can be described and measured. It also proposes a preliminary conceptual model that accounts for the readily apparent, measurable variables in a visual message. The graphic elements that are described include format, typeface, and photographs/artwork. The…

This paper reports the problems involved in measuring the extent to which the practice in program sites matches model theory formulated in Head Start Planned Variation. The main focus in studying program implementation is the question of internal validity, whether the children in the HSPV programs actually receive the treatment being evaluated.…

This commissioned paper examines the National Assessment for Educational Progress model for citizenship and suggests an alternative model oriented more directly to educational and political goals. In the current model performances on the citizenship exercises can only be interpreted by the population characteristics of age, sex, parental…

The educational goals, as adopted formally or tentatively by the respective States, have been compiled in this single document. The goals were obtained by a survey conducted by the State Educational Accountability Repository (SEAR), a program of the Cooperative Accountability Project (CAP), administered by the State of Colorado. The predominant…

Three propositions which may suggest a strategy for meeting the measurement needs of education are presented: (1) Educational measurement possesses enough techniques and principles to permit tackling problems for their intrinsic importance, rather than for their convenience of fit to answers we already have; (2) Measurement needs are a subset of…